The global and open nature of the Internet has aided the rapid growth of multimedia sharing sites, two examples of which are FLICKR® and JUMPCUT®. One of the basic functionalities of content sharing sites is to provide a user with the ability to annotate or “tag” content items with textual descriptions of the submitted media. For example, a user may tag a picture of the Eiffel tower with the annotations “Eiffel tower”, “Paris” and “France.”
The use of annotations in content sharing sites allows users to search for a given content item using well known text searching techniques and algorithms. Additionally, they allow content items to be treated as textual data in a variety of useful ways, such as categorizing content items, linking associated content items to a given content item, etc. Putting total control in a user's hands, however, results in a less than perfect data set. Indeed, the global nature of the Internet quickly increases the rate of incomplete information associated with a given content item.
Thus there is a need in the art to provide systems, methods and computer program products for extending user annotations with related annotations based on an initial set of user-supplied annotations. By supplying the user with a list of possible annotations to include in addition to his or her own annotations, a system may become more robust by allowing a user to fully describe his or her content items with terms he or she may not have originally considered. Additionally, a more robust database allows other users to locate and browse content items more effectively, as data describing content items is thoroughly defined.